Spurs have now kept three clean sheets in their opening four league games
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Frank could not repair Postecoglou’s past mistakes quickly enough
West Ham 0-3 Tottenham (Soucek red 54′ | Sarr 47′, Bergvall 54′, Van de Ven 64′)
LONDON STADIUM — There were 72 minutes on the clock when the Tottenham Hotspur showboating began.
Mathys Tel’s drilled cross-field pass spent an age in the sky before dipping sharply. Mohammed Kudus nonchalantly cushioned its landing with his heel tucked behind his standing foot. It is quite the party trick and the away fans enjoyed it as much as the home fans hated it. The ole’s soon followed.
Kudus’s every touch was still being roundly booed by the West Ham faithful, but the racket had subsided by that stage with Spurs 3-0 up with an extra man and more seats visible than people in the London Stadium.
An even first-half was followed by an embarrassingly one-sided second. West Ham not so much shot themselves in the foot as blew it off with a hand grenade.
Within 11 minutes of the restart, they conceded two goals and had a man sent off. They have lost their two home games (both London derbies) this season by an aggregate score of 8-1.
Spurs deserve credit for a professional job well done, though, and the Thomas Frank revolution is back up and running after being derailed by Bournemouth.
Abject as their opponents were, there was much for Frank to be pleased with afterwards.
Xavi Simons was bright and influential on his first appearance for the club. Pape Matar Sarr (22) and Lucas Bergvall (19) were outstanding in midfield. Tel got a confidence-boosting 79 minutes after his Champions League snub.
He will have been enthused by their threat from set-pieces, too.
Last season, Tottenham scored 10 goals from corners or free-kicks in the Premier League, a reasonable total matched by the champions Liverpool but bettered by 10 other teams in the division.
Set-pieces didn’t seem to be too much of a priority for Ange Postecoglou, certainly not to the same extent that they are under Frank, who has brought his Brentford marginal gains approach to a bigger club with better players.
Spurs may have only scored one so far this campaign – the opener from Sarr on Saturday – but they had another goal ruled out for a foul and caused havoc with their in-swinging corners all afternoon, peppering poor Mads Hermansen all game.
They targeted the struggling Dane as others have zoned in on Guglielmo Vicario.
The result granted the PGMOL a reprieve after another contentious call. Cristian Romero was mightily unfortunate to be denied a derby goal for an alleged infringement from Micky van de Ven on Kyle Walker-Peters as Kudus’s corner was being taken.
The Dutchman bundled into the full-back, but only after being buffeted into him by Mateus Fernandes. It was a decision stripped of context: there were two pushes but only the second was looked at. Jamie Redknapp called it a “domino effect” on Sky Sports at half-time.
Ultimately, it was inconsequential in the end.
Tottenham turned to Simons to fill their creativity vacuum, encouraged to part with £52m for the eternal wonderkid partly on account of his 26 league assists over the past three seasons with RB Leipzig and PSV Eindhoven. It took the Dutchman 47 minutes to set up his first in a Spurs shirt.
West Ham may have survived that first set-piece scare, but it was no surprise that Tottenham’s opener came via that method.
Simons’ deep corner was pinpoint; Sarr’s back post header was emphatic; West Ham’s marking was abysmal. Sarr barely had to move to find himself completely free.
“We know the set-pieces are just as important as the open-play,” Simons said. “At half-time we spoke about it and I found Pape [Matar Sarr].”
West Ham have already conceded five set-piece goals this season, more than double the number of any other team in the division.
Eight minutes later, Tomas Soucek made a reckless, sock-ruining challenge on Joao Palhinha that prompted a red card.
West Ham’s misery was compounded when Spurs scored within three passes of the resulting free-kick: Simons square to Palhinha, Palhinha square to Romero, Romero over the top to Bergvall, Bergvall header into the top corner.
That goal will not count towards Tottenham’s set-play tally, but it was indicative of their urgency to maximise those situations by getting the ball forward quickly.
A stunning pass from Romero was matched by a magnificent header from Bergvall.
The Swede turned provider for the third, nudging the ball to Van de Ven who swept home a finish like a seasoned No 9. Even that had dead ball origins, with Frank pointing out it was a “second-phase set-piece”.
“You’re going down,” gloated the travelling fans. You wouldn’t have found many home fans disagreeing with that sentiment.
